Smart antenna is a key technology for
mobile communications, satellite communications, radar and sensors as it can
enable the wireless systems to achieve the optimum performance by
electronically steering its maximum radiation towards the desired directions
while forming nulls against interfering sources. Traditional smart antennas
are, however, complicated in structure, bulky, power hungry and costly. For
commercial applications, it is important to reduce the size, mass, power
consumption and cost of smart antennas. Firstly, this IEEE DL talk will present
an introduction to smart antennas, followed by a brief review of various types
of low-cost smart antennas. Then, several recent examples of low-cost smart
antennas will be presented and discussed. These antennas are capable of
achieving electronic beam steering within a wide angular range, while having
compact sizes, low power consumption and low cost. A conclusion will be given
in the end and discussions.

Bio:

Professor Steven (Shichang) Gao is Chair of RF and
Microwave Engineering at School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of
Kent, UK. Prior to joining Kent, he was the Head of Space Antennas and RF
System Group at Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey (UK). He is also a
Visiting Professor at Northwestern Polytechnic University (Xi'an, China) and
the University of Calabria (Italy). He is an IEEE AP-S Distinguished
Lecturer (2014-2016), General Co-Chair of Loughborough Antennas and
Propagation International Conference (LAPC), UK, 2013, and Chair of
Special Session on “Satellite Communication Antennas” in IEEE/IET International
Symposium on Communication Systems and Networks, Poland, 2012, etc. Recently he
was appointed as the Editor-in-Chief for Wiley Book Series on
"Microwave and Wireless Technologies". He has two books
including Space Antenna Handbook (Wiley,
2012) and Circularly Polarized
Antennas(Wiley-IEEE, 2014), over 180 technical papers, 10
book chapters and several patents in smart antennas and RF. He received
"URSI Young Scientist Award" from International Union of Radio
Science (URSI), 2002, "Japan Society of Promotion Science (JSPS)
Fellowship Award", Japan, 2005, “Best Paper Award”, LAPC, 2012, JSPS
Award, Japan, 2013, Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Fellow Award, UK,
2013, etc. His main areas of expertise are in antennas, space antennas, smart
antennas, phased arrays, RF/microwave/millimetre-wave circuits and RF front
ends (high-efficiency RF/microwave power amplifiers, filters), satellite
communications, mobile communications, UWB radars, GPS antennas and
reflectometry, synthetic-aperture radars, remote sensing, electromagnetic
modelling and small satellites (micro-satellite, mini-satellite,
nano-satellite).